Frate Night III | Chalk It Up

Friend + Date = Frate

The Frate Night series is designed to give you affordable options to invest in the people around you through simple, but creative experiences. I’m based in Raleigh, NC, so that’s where these will be set, but many of these ideas can be adapted to fit wherever you are.

Frate Night III

In the words of this random guy I met playing legos on Thursday night at Oak and Dagger, “these things don’t become less fun, people just stop taking the time to enjoy them.” I would like to apply that theory to sidewalk chalk.

So what’s the move? We took a warm afternoon and chalked up the park down the street. Make a mural. Depict a story. Write a phrase.

It’s elementary—I realize that, but it’s also therapeutic. It’s like yoga without those nasty stretches or the risk of tipping over. If you will allow yourself, your focus on something so simple and agenda-less can offer you a chance to come up for air from your suffocating stressors.

If you want to take this activity to the next level, make it a competition.

First, agree to terms. For example, agree that the loser has to buy the winner a milkshake. Next, find your judges. If you’re in a well-trafficked area, ask passersby to vote for their favorite chalk art. If you don’t have enough of an audience, post photos of the art to your Instagram stories and use a poll to determine popular opinion. Of course, you’ll need to have identical polls on both of your stories and tally the totals to mitigate bias. Last, set a time frame. After an hour (or however long you’ve chosen), the loser treats the winner to the prize and the frate moves on!